Small, Unctuous frog,
Squatting on his lily pad,
Only yawns to eat.
--------------------------------------
Gaudy cherry trees,
Fearful of a rising wind,
Grip their blossoms tight.
--------------------------------------
The stream's headwaters
Have not yet seen the valley;
Nor we yet Heaven.
--------------------------------------
Categories:
headwaters, appreciation, environment, nature,
Form: Haiku
Cicada Dreaming was told to Roland Robinson in 1965 by Julia Charles of the Yoocum Yoocum clans from the area around Wollumbin in the headwaters of the Tweed River, Northern NSW and is used with permission.
Tiny Dreamtime children, imprisoned in the earth,
pierce the little tree roots to sip sap beneath the dirt.
For seven years, cicada grubs, as they scratch and dig,
keep getting so much bigger that they pop off their skins.
The final time they’re off and up: up a fence, up a trunk, up a shed.
Kids collect the shells they leave, stuck with claws on curling feet.
Buzz, buzz, buzz: cicada wings brush past my nose.
Their raucous chorus is a non-stop drone.
A thousand bodies cling on sticks and twigs and leaves.
Above my ringing ears their yellow wee rains down me.
Every year they deafen us. The noise is really bad -
crying for their mothers, screaming for their dads.
But, this year there are - none.
I’m surprised that I feel sad.
Where have the mad things gone?
Yellow Mondays, Green Grocers,
Black Princes, Cherry Noses -
Much as they annoy me,
I hope that they’ll be back.
Categories:
headwaters, insect,
Form: Rhyme
What a profound blessing is Mother nature
In its hands and human gratitude lies our future.
The birds in the sky. and the mountains so pristine and high
The trees are so green, and the streams and headwaters are so clean.
All of the nature work in harmony to breed and nurture lives
Can anyone match its prowess. howsoever hard one strives?
Alas! We mistreat. misuse and exploit our biggest boon Unless we wake up now. we will Lose it too soon.
The rampant use of chemicals and plastic. is so very drastic
Do we all not know - it is not a joke or sarcastic.
The Marine Life in Oceans and Seas. are all living in unease
Human greed and instinct are making other animals extinct.
First the Dodo. after that Mamo. then the Thylacine, We Lost them all. yet we remain selfish and mean.
Wake up, Rise and Promise - Friends, young and elder Let us stay blessed with Mother Nature - our only shelter.
Trishaan Sethi Grade VI
Categories:
headwaters, 7th grade, nature,
Form: Rhyme
There is beauty in this world that’s truly a miracle to behold.
Unexpected romance, that will turn your blood hot from ice cold.
I have loved with a passion that made fire rain from the night sky.
I’m in love with just one woman, and I will be until I die.
I’ve seen the Grand Canyon and felt its majestic and artistic style.
I was captivated by the great pyramids, and the headwaters of the Nile.
I wept at Peyto Lake, with its water of neon blue.
I’ve felt the kindness of strangers, that helped to see me through.
I’ve witnessed the setting sun, drizzle crimson on the coast.
There are so many wonders, but just one I’ll remember the most.
I’ve held it in my arms under this endless sky of blue.
A miraculous work of art, it’s the beauty I see in you.
If tomorrow this world should end, and the beauty it holds is gone.
Your face is what I’ll remember, as I greet my final dawn.
The memory of your smile will last forever more.
When I look, I’ll just see you, the one I most adore.
Categories:
headwaters, beauty, love,
Form: Couplet
Rivers In Flood
Sprung from headwaters, source hidden in the past or sometimes present,
Starting small,
To begin the journey downstream to where it may go.
Restless, searching, agitated.
As it sweeps along, building in force, and speed and fullness.
Multiple currents,
Deep, silent burdens brought up from the depths- old, ancient.
They carry old history as they gather strength and density
From the things that they carry –
Skeleton trees, rocks, detritus.
The upper current layers
Foam with explosive plume and mists,
Which sometimes obscure the river bed and its jagged rocks
With the wild cacophony of movement.
The force of history, past and present.
The face of rage which carries with it.
Things never changed, never resolved, never acknowledged,
The Rivers in Flood tonight carrying rage.
D Holmes 9/8/2020
Categories:
headwaters, nature,
Form: Free verse
If ever you find
If ever you shall find
some happy burbling by
my warméd face...
It only can be
It ever only could be
a gift from upstream.
She’s the Headwaters of my Happy.
Her Light swims and flows
down from her ever-giving Valley,
set splash-tumbling down from
her Pinnacle of Kind.
I attributary every softening, every
upturned mouth corner, each easing
in my day to her flow of Truesweet.
All joy flows from the Foothills of her
Heart. The ones I bend to. The ones I thank.
The ones I Kiss.
Categories:
headwaters, happy, love, romantic love,
Form: Free verse
Writing is a river,
The headwaters
Springing from the well,
Bubbling up and out
Free-flowing
Falling and frothing white in the flux of development.
Writing is a river,
Tempered by the banks of time and distance, yet
Moving steadily, flowing in a forward restless direction
Bending and bowing
Coursing around or through obstacles
Detouring here,
Hovering briefly there,
Shifting,
Sliding,
Changing the landscape.
Writing is a river
Streaming into the flow
Of a wider, deeper channel
Sauntering and strolling,
Reposing in the estuary, pausing at the
Reflection pool before proceeding into the
Bigger, broader body and the
Completion of its natural course.
Categories:
headwaters, blessing, creation, destiny, growth,
Form: Free verse
Head
waters
join to form
streams then rivers
together flowing to distant ocean
Categories:
headwaters, water,
Form: Tetractys
Headwaters,
Of the world’s flowing souls,
Cresting to flight and misting rainbows.
Everyone.
Searching for another.
To endure sacrifices behold,
Cascading
Heart’s ladles dip into
Basins of memories in plunge pools.
Waterfalls,
From the rapids of youth,
To the flat waters of golden years
----------------------------------------------
Contest: Some Form of Crystalline
Form: Verse : Parallelogram de Crystalline
11.02.14
----------------------------------------------
Received an NA in the above contest.
Entered in Edward Ebbs's contest: Only for those NA's on 01.23.16
The contest calls for an explanation of what the poem means to the author:
This poem is a summary of life.
Headwaters=birth,
Cresting=growing up,
misting=your effect on others and the world,
'searching for another'=could be spouse, money, God, or just yourself, etc,
Sacrifices=what you traded for what you wanted,
cascading=life, time goes by so fast
Once you reach old age, hopefully your waters are calm (flat), and not still turbulent or made turbulent due to regret from choices and the trades you made in youth.
Categories:
headwaters, love, metaphor, relationship, river,
Form: Verse
Winding past sand dunes
like shapes of a cratered moon,
the river moves and ibis stand
on stick thin legs in the grand
flow of the Nile.
Mississippi muds ooze through
headwaters overflow
down to the shrimp bayou.
Macaws call in misty dawn
awakening monkey chatter
through swamps of the Amazon.
Frothy rapids cascade past
cliffs that strain to touch the sky
above the Colorado's roar.
Out of the old growth forest
comes a gurgle of water rushing as
the Willamette appears before us.
Winding, moving, crashing,
frothing, gurgling, roaring, oozing,
the stuff on which our lives depend,
our heritage,
our kin ...
this water.
Categories:
headwaters, nature,
Form: Free verse
Storms rain sprung on rocky clefts
Where springtime run-off streams are filled.
Where snows melts and clouds lift
The start of water generous gift.
Here the rivulet and creeks build.
Through the foothill small brooks run
On their track toward His sea.
Fast their speed and faster won
Faster forward the plains they hum
From this slope, increase their speed.
Life giving water gentle flows
Meander out across the plains
Forward to sea the water goes
Wider and wider, the river grows.
It gathers here, yet with the rains.
A distance far from mountains tops
A river plunges into a sea
From time began it never stops,
Headwaters high to ocean drops
Forever will the rivers be.
The scars of earth are God's plan
The river runs without a reason.
Therefore, it is the heart of man
On the banks of might rivers stand
To live and love in ever season.
Categories:
headwaters, nature, water, river, water,
Form: Quintain (English)
Accepting the blood to drip
Solid stone
From these polished fingertips
Haiku
As defensive weapon
To still the deep agony
That we wade through
Haiku
The voices children
Sounding, footsteps
That carry us
Past these dying
Haiku
And make us able
To defend
us, And once again
Be om, Fallow
Haiku
The saturation
Dancing, fellow
Tapping resources, Headwaters
Haiku
I cut you back, As you cut me
Crying smiling, To breath in
And,...coo
haiku
Sometimes rhyming
Always sinning
In the saintly graces, drowning seed
Categories:
headwaters, wife,
Form: Haiku